[Retric]

Fixing Brazil's economy has little to do with using more land. US Forest Service Manages 8% of US land for example.

More simply modern economy gains little from farm land as there exists such an over supply of food that farming tends to be break even or be a net economic loss.

That said, people will always be interested in extracting value from pubic lands at the public expense.

[owebmaster]

Your answer doesn't make sense. The Amazon and others protected sites in Brazil are a much larger area than 8%. If we preserved only 8%, Brazil would be the richest country in the world. Maybe the US devastated an Amazon to get there.

[darkmighty]

Wat. The Central-West region of Brazil which is primarily agricultural produces less than 10% of Brazil's GDP. I'd say given the possibly disastrous local climate consequences from destroying most of the Amazon, and similar total area, we could say that at absolute best case we might achieve a similar gain. Which would grow our economy by at most 10%.

Destroying the world's most biodiverse ecosystem (seriously, read some statistics on number of species in the Amazon -- it's mind boggling) to grow the GDP by 10% is not just incredibly selfish (supposedly exchanging a global treasure for national gain). It's not even the best for our own interests; it's myopic, greedy, inhumane. Even the actual direct economic value of scientific research with industrial applications such as biomimicry research, plants with applications in medicine and food industry, etc. would completely dwarf a one time 10% gain. And then there's the hardly measurable value of lost knowledge and natural richness.

Don't be the child exclaiming "But my brother was greedy too!". This is our treasure, and our responsibility.

[eloff]

It would seem to me that the Amazon is worth much more than that left intact. Australia's Great Barrier Reef contributes 6.5 billion to the local economy each year through tourism and fishing. The Amazon could potentially be worth much more in tourism value. Not to mention untapped value as a source for undiscovered pharmaceuticals. It also generates 75% of it's own rain - which is critical to the agriculture in the region as well as all these hydroelectric projects.

If greed ends up winning and most of the forest is destroyed, Brazil will find itself without a national treasure, and likely be economically worse off for it.

[nitwit005]

Chopping down or burning a bunch of forest hardly seems like it's going to make Brazil rich.

Some of the worlds major economic success stories are countries with few natural resources, Taiwan being a common example. At the same time, there are a number of countries heavily exploiting their resources, yet seemingly without alleviating their poverty.

There are plenty of places trying to re-forest, which also suggests that you might get stuck with the long term cost of trying to undo the damage done.

[maxerickson]

A great deal of the land managed by the US Forest Service was clear cut before it became national forest.

In Michigan we have a few little pockets of real old growth forest and national forests the size of a small country.

[thiagooffm]

Sure thing, you can improve in many areas, having Brazil being less corrupt would work wonders, but this won't change overnight.

But policies and agendas, imposed from countries abroad, changes the mindset of everybody very fast.

Funny thing. 8%. completely comparable to the amount of land in Brazil is owned by the government, or is regulated and so on.

It's no wonder that regulation and enforcement has improved things lately(in Brazil!), but why the fuck do we need to follow agendas from abroad, just like I've said before, getting shitty trade deals? :-)

[Retric]

To be clear, 14 percent of the land area of the United States is protected. My point was becoming rich need not turn 100% of a country's land.

But, I can see your point.